Hophead Marketing: What B2B Marketers Can Learn From The Craft Beer Industry
What can the wildly successful craft beer industry teach B2B marketers?
From storytelling and keeping content fresh to making corporate campaigns delightfully crushable, there’s plenty the B2B marketing world can learn from taking a look at the craft beer industry and its emphasis on customer delight, engagement, and more.
While the pandemic has slowed the growth of the craft beer industry with the largest disruption to the industry since the days of Prohibition — leading to an 8 percent decline in sales among small and independent craft brewers — its trajectory over the past decade has been undeniably admirable.
The global health crisis has forced the craft beer industry to change, including an expansion of direct-to-consumer sales in the face of closed taprooms, yet there’s still much that B2B marketers can learn from the long-term ascendancy of the craft beer world.
Let’s hop right in and take a look at a selection of the top things B2B marketers can learn from the craft beer industry.
Find Your B2B Tech or Finance Freshies
Among craft brewers, the fresh-hopped variety of seasonal beer features hops used as close to the time they’re harvested as possible, and the resulting India Pale Ave (IPA) freshies are highly desirable among hoppy beer fans, but they don’t retain their initial taste qualities long enough to be a year-round offering.
In B2B marketing, we can make the equivalent of content freshies by offering existing and prospective customers any type or format of digital assets that don’t fit into the unchanging evergreen content category. Timely content can come from many sources in the B2B marketing world, however some of the most successful features elements that often revolve around:
- Virtual or real-world conferences
- Twitter chats and Reddit Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) sessions
- Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces audio-based calls
- Current events and so-called hashtag holidays
- Timely social media polls
- Live-stream events
Whether you’re in the B2B technology, finance, or another business industry, give your customers a generous pour of virtual freshies by including a fresh mix of seasonal and unique content in your marketing blend, to augment your evergreen information that doesn’t necessarily change throughout the year.
Make Your Corporate Channels Crushable
Crushable beers are generally considered easygoing lower-alcohol beers that make customers want more, a phenomenon that is also quite well-suited to B2B marketing.
Crushable B2B marketing content isn’t bitter or hard to consume, instead focusing on providing customers an experience so smooth and pleasant that they’ll want to come back for more, whether it’s by subscribing to your brand’s newsletter, liking its LinkedIn company page, or becoming a regular listener to your firm’s podcast.
Here’s a list of just a few of the elements that help make your B2B marketing content crushable:
- Easy-to-digest content that’s well-written and pleasantly positive
- Contains enough helpful information to make it relevant
- Makes it easy for customers to subscribe or otherwise get more of the content they find crushable
Sometimes the craft beer industry also considers crushable beer to have a session beer component — tying it in to a social occasion over a specific period of time, or session.
Session content, similarly, gives customers an easy flow from one piece of information to the next, such as in the popular social media stories format, where text, images, and video all play in sequence, with little effort required on the part of the customer.
Don’t be afraid to creatively use the stories format for B2B marketing content, and to serialize other forms of digital content — from B2B podcasts that customers can binge on while listening, or brand video playlists that can auto-play for binge watching.
Give the People More of What They Want: Humanize Your Customer Relationships with the Cheers Factor
The craft brewing industry fully recognizes and puts to good use the “Cheers” factor — a key selling point of pubs and taprooms going back centuries, long before the hit television comedy “Cheers” popularized that sense of camaraderie and desire to be “where everybody knows your name.”
B2B marketers have made substantial inroads when it comes to personalizing both content and communication, yet in the post-pandemic landscape marketers looking for new ways to differentiate their brand would be well served by focusing even more on fostering the human connection between brand and customer.
Some of the ways B2B marketers can make more personal connections include:
- Talk like a person and not a jargon-filled corporate chat-bot
- Feature your team in content
- Make your customers your superstars
- Harness the power of content co-creation with influential subject matter experts
Miri Rodriguez, storyteller and internship program head at Microsoft, recently explored how B2B marketers can use storytelling and empathy to move past numbers and facts, which I covered in “Microsoft’s Miri Rodriguez on How B2B Marketers Are Embracing Empathy For Better Customer Storytelling #B2BMX.”
Our senior content marketing manager Joshua Nite took a closer look at the increasing importance of adding more of the human touch to B2B content, in “5 Ways to Humanize Your B2B Content Marketing – And Why It Matters,” and I also offered up several insights into the subject in, “28 B2B Marketing Insights To Energize & Humanize Your 2021.”
[bctt tweet=”“You really have to think about how you build a long-term committed relationship with the user – it’s not a one-and-done. There’s never really an end to it. It’s continuous and iterative.” @amandatodo” username=”toprank”]Brew Better Storytelling with a Chill Haze of Communities
Another successful tactic employed by the craft beer industry that B2B marketers can learn from is the powerful messaging that comes when we explore the stories of the people behind the face of the business.
Asking questions is a great way to begin, such as, “Who are you? What makes your brand, your people, and your story stand out?”
One take on storytelling for B2B breaks down the work story by letter, with the S.T.O.R.Y. model including:
- Sizzle
- Tension
- Originality
- Relevance
- Yearning
It’s a definition our content marketing manager Nick Nelson explores in, “Your Guide to Effective Storytelling in B2B Content Marketing.”
Just as in the craft beer industry they say that every beer and beer-drinker tells a story, brand storytelling offers a wealth of opportunity for B2B marketers to create content that makes a brand’s story — and that of its customers — come to life.
Be The Best Answer & Learn From Craft Industry Success
By engaging and delighting customers through serving up brand freshies, creating crushable content, and humanizing customer relationships with hopped up storytelling, your B2B marketing efforts will be poised to celebrate new levels of success.
Creating award-winning B2B marketing content that delights and engages takes significant effort, which leads more firms than ever to choose working with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us today and let us know how we can help, as we’ve done for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.
The post Hophead Marketing: What B2B Marketers Can Learn From The Craft Beer Industry appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog – TopRank®.
Instagram filtra i messaggi diretti offensivi
Instagram, come tutti gli altri social network, espone purtroppo gli utenti a messaggi offensivi, haters e compagnia. Insulti e minacce spesso compaiono sotto i post e le storie, ma sono veicolati anche attraverso di DM, ovvero i messaggi diretti che su Instagram espongono anche i più giovani a problematiche relative ai messaggi offensivi. A tal proposito, il social network di proprietà di Facebook ha pensato ad una nuova tecnologia basata sull’intelligenza artificiale per filtrare le offese.
Amazon Echo Show 10
Sono passati circa due anni dal lancio in Italia del primo dispositivo Echo con display, e dopo Echo Show, Echo Show 5 ed Echo Show 8, Amazon porta nel nostro paese il nuovo Echo Show 10, terza generazione del suo smart display di dimensioni maggiori, con un design rinnovato ed nuove funzioni, ma sempre con Alexa. Lo abbiamo provato per qualche settimana, e di seguito le nostre considerazioni.
Alex Ross di Marvel e DC Comics lancia NFT di dipinti di supereroi
Il fumetto Alex Ross , collaboratore di lunga data della Marvel e della DC Comics, ha annunciato l’intenzione di svelare la sua prima serie di dipinti come segno non fungibile. I token non fungibili, o NFT, sono diventati una tendenza digitale molto popolare, che consente la vendita di contenuti digitali che non hanno una forma tangibile. La tecnologia NFT consente ai collezionisti di acquistare e archiviare opere digitali, tracciate con tecnologia blockchain, garantendo allo stesso…
L’articolo Alex Ross di Marvel e DC Comics lancia NFT di dipinti di supereroi scritto da Michele Ficara Manganelli ✿ proviene da Assodigitale.
Justin Sun di Tron lancia il suo fondo di investimento NFT
A marzo, Justin Sun , CEO della piattaforma di criptovaluta Tron, ha rivelato di aver istituito un fondo di investimento NFT incentrato sulle acquisizioni di arte blue-chip. Ora, i recenti acquisti di Sun di opere di Picasso e Warhol per un valore di $ 22 milioni saranno tra le prime opere d’arte ad essere registrate digitalmente sulla blockchain tramite il nuovo fondo, intitolato JUST NFT, tramite un processo noto come tokenizzazione. In una lettera aperta…
L’articolo Justin Sun di Tron lancia il suo fondo di investimento NFT scritto da Michele Ficara Manganelli ✿ proviene da Assodigitale.
CoinGecko lancia una sezione NFT Spotlight dedicata all’arte
CoinGecko ha lanciato “NFT Spotlight” sul proprio sito web. Sven Eberwein è il primo artista a collaborare. Uno dei problemi di vecchia data nel mondo dell’arte è stato riunire clienti e venditori con relativa facilità. Molti artisti spesso lottano per colmare il divario. “Spotlight” è un altro passo del settore delle criptovalute per colmare questa lacuna con gli NFT. Gli NFT forniscono una nuova piattaforma per gli artisti CoinGecko ha annunciato il lancio di un…
L’articolo CoinGecko lancia una sezione NFT Spotlight dedicata all’arte scritto da Michele Ficara Manganelli ✿ proviene da Assodigitale.
New progress toward our 24/7 carbon-free energy goal
Like so many, I’ve been spending more time outdoors this year, whether it’s taking walks with my dog or hiking with my family. This extra time in nature has given me a deeper appreciation for the work being done to preserve our planet for future generations. At the same time, wildfires and other climate disasters around the world remind us of how urgent that work really is.
That’s why, with Earth Day this week, I’m so excited about the progress we’re making at Google towards our goal to operate entirely on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030. This commitment goes beyond being carbon neutral (which we’ve been since 2007) and matching our operations with 100% renewable energy, which we’ve now done over four consecutive years. (See below for an explainer on why carbon-free energy is our most ambitious sustainability goal yet.)
A recipe for productivity
Dr. Kapil Parakh is a Medical Lead for Google Fit and a practicing cardiologist at the VA in Washington, D.C. During the week he splits his time between seeing patients, developing technology that improves wellbeing and staying active with his family. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s even picked up a new hobby to cope during quarantine: baking baguettes.
Every day, Kapil draws on his unique background to help people live longer and healthier lives. Before coming to Google, he completed medical school in Zambia, trained at Johns Hopkins in cardiology, public health and epidemiology, and served as a White House Fellow.
His long list of roles and responsibilities makes me wonder how he finds time for it all — so I asked him. Kapil says it boils down to what he considers his ingredients for success: get the most out of everything you work on, use the rule of thirds and have a rock-solid support system.
Maximize the output of your work.
Kapil’s consistent advice to others is to find a way to take what you’re working on and expand it into something bigger — with minimal extra effort. A few years ago, Kapil helped develop Heart Points for Google Fit, an activity goal based on recommendations shown to impact health. He then used that body of work to help educate personal trainers, cardiologists and people working in general medicine. It was the same context, repurposed for different groups.
Similarly, before joining the Fit team, Kapil worked on Google Search for three years. In his day-to-day work he thought a lot about how people searched for health-related content online and how Google could surface helpful information in return. As a result of his team’s work, you can see health knowledge panels, information boxes on search results pages that help you quickly find medically accurate information about common symptoms and conditions.
That work could have ended when Kapil left the Search team. Instead, he took what he observed and turned it into something more: a book about how to find and use medical information online. That book, Searching for Health, was just published today.
“We all have limited time,” Kapil says. “We need to try and maximize our output.” To do so, he suggests taking a single project that you’re working on, and consider how you can turn it into more formats for more people.
Remember the rule of thirds.
Of course, this can’t apply to all of your work, all of the time. You aren’t going to be able to publish a book based on every work project. This is where Kapil’s rule of thirds comes into play. Roughly speaking, work can be broken down into three buckets: short-term work (like requests from others that pop up in your inbox or administrative tasks that require immediate action), mid-term projects (like creating a training or presenting your work at a conference) and long-term projects (like publishing a book). Those last two buckets are where maximizing your output comes into play.
“It’s a matter of being cognizant of all the things you’re working on and how they fit together toward your goals,” Kapil says. “It’s kind of like rock climbing, you have to be aware of the footholds. The way up isn’t straight up like a ladder, it’s more amorphous.”
Find support — whether it’s in relationships or a bag of flour.
While Kapil’s advice is all about finding patterns and connecting dots, he doesn’t hesitate to take on completely new things — like baking bread. Last year Kapil was grieving the loss of his father in the midst of the pandemic. To help him cope, his wife handed him a recipe for baguettes. If nothing else, she thought it would be a good distraction. The result was both delicious and therapeutic — and Kapil is still churning out bread from his kitchen. Most importantly, it was a reminder to Kapil of how important his support system is.
“It’s this type of support that allows me to balance so many hats,” he says. “As an immigrant and a person of color, I honestly wouldn’t be where I am today without the tremendous support of my family and mentors.”
Work Smarter
How Google tools can help you work smarter, and advice from Googlers on how they get it done.
Tap into fan power with new YouTube Select sponsorships
Fromrecord-breaking music video releases tonever-before-seen conversations with celebrities, YouTube has become the virtual stage for the world’s biggest cultural moments.The top 10 videos from 2020 — reaching a total of 356 million collective views — brought the world together to game, to laugh, to share some good news and so much more.
As home to the content people need and the creators they love, YouTube is where personal meets popular — with fan favorite channels like Naomi Campbell (500,000+ subscribers) and Zach King (10 million+ subscribers). In the U.S., YouTube is the #1 video content provider viewers would miss the most if it was no longer available.1
To help brands engage peak audiences, build association and stay relevant when it matters most, today we’re announcing a bigger, better sponsorship program under YouTube Select in the U.S.
Expanding our YouTube Select sponsorship offering
In addition to longstanding sponsorships available exclusively in the upfront like NFL Game Day All Access, new this year, we’re offering a rolling set of seasonal sponsorships available on a quarterly basis.
Our seasonal sponsorship offering focuses specifically on what’s prominent in culture during that time of year, like Mother’s Day, Summer Wellness or Women in Music during Women’s History Month. And most importantly, the breadth of the seasonal slate means advertisers have a much wider variety of opportunities to celebrate diverse communities and topics, and reach their audiences where they are watching.
See below for a glimpse into some of the most exciting sponsorships coming up, available either upfront or through our new seasonal offering.
The Upfront Slate
Reaching over 30 million views in the 2020 season,NFL Game Day All Access will be returning to YouTube for a third season this fall.2 Streaming exclusively on the NFL YouTube channel, it gives fans an intimate look at the full game day experience, with wired sound from players and coaches. Advertisers will have the opportunity to sponsor the show for multiple episodes during the regular season and postseason.
2020 was the biggest year yet for gaming on YouTube, with 100 billion watch time hours and 40 million+ active gaming channels. Building on this momentum, we’re adding a brand new upfront opportunity with Summer Game Fest — the industry’s first fully digital and global gaming event. We’re also excited to bring back the upfront sponsorship for The Game Awards — one of the biggest nights in the gaming industry that celebrates the biggest achievements of the year, including high share of voice, in-show integration and more.
Additionally, brands will have the opportunity to put on their studio executive hats with YouTube Greenlight. YouTube Greenlight brings a group of emerging YouTube creators together to pitch an original series ideas based on specific advertisers goals. The sponsorship includes a custom creator pitch session, a fully funded creator original series with integrations and paid promotion across YouTube.
The Seasonal Slate
Today, YouTube announced a continued focus on sustainability with new original programming coming later this year. A subset of these shows will be available for sponsorship as part of our Q4 sustainability seasonal package, alongside other opportunities with YouTube creators and content focused on sustainable impact. The sponsorship will be available for companies with strong commitments to building a better planet for everyone.
Additionally, the seasonal state offers new ways to connect with your audience during holidays like Mother’s Day. For Mother’s Day specifically, we’ve seen surges in interest for things like that special gift, the perfect song for mom and more. To help brands align with this moment on YouTube, we’re offering a variety of packages including ownership of top moms’ channel WhatsUpMoms and the ability to build your own high share of voice packages across top mom creator and celebrity channels.
A new certification for health insurance advertisers in the U.S.
Our top priority is to create a safe and trustworthy experience for users, whether they’re searching for information online or interacting with ads across our platforms. That’s why we have robust Google Ads policies outlining the types of advertising we do and don’t allow.
When developing our advertising policies, we often work with outside experts to ensure we’re factoring in relevant government regulations and industry accreditation programs. This helps us to connect users directly to the advertisers who both meet the latest standards and offer the product or service directly. For example, we have a longstanding certification program for online pharmacies which limits ads for the sale of prescription drugs to those from licensed pharmacies in countries where those ads are legal. Similarly, last year, we introduced a new policy to restrict promotions for official government services like passport renewals, visa applications or changing mailing addresses to the governments or their delegated providers.
Today, we are announcing our plans for a new certification program for health insurance advertisers in the United States. With this certification, we will only allow ads from government exchanges, first-party providers and licensed third-party brokers. In order to run ads, advertisers will need to provide documentation showing they are permitted under state law to sell health insurance. This includes plans for individual health insurance coverage, short-term coverage and Medicare, among others. Additionally, for private-sector providers promoting Affordable Care Act-compliant health plans, we will also require proof they are registered with the U.S. government to do so.
When people come to Google with questions about healthcare coverage and insurance plans, we are committed to creating a high-quality ad experience – one where they’re connected to trustworthy providers, and the promotion is clear from the ad itself. This new certification creates an additional layer of protection on top of our longstanding misrepresentation policies, which prohibit advertisements with misleading claims about insurance plans or the advertiser’s affiliation with the government.
Advertisers can begin to apply for certification on May 3, 2021. If they do not complete certification by June 2, 2021, they will no longer be able to serve their ads. For more information on the certification program and Google Ads policies visit our Advertiser Help Center.
Join us for our first virtual Web Stories workshop
The Web Creators team at Google is inviting anyone who creates content on the web to our first-ever virtual Web Stories workshop. Web Stories are a web-based version of the popular Story format, which allow you to engage your audience like never before. Create richer, more intimate and more meaningful experiences that connect with your fans – all while hosting, owning and sharing your own content.
The workshop will take place live on Thursday, May 6, 2021 at 1 PM Eastern time and is for creators who regularly create content for the web and have an online presence. During this workshop, you’ll learn about:
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The evolution of modern storytelling on the web and how Web Stories can help you grow your audience with rich, immersive content.
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Web Story editors and how to use them. You’ll be starting your own Web Story in real time with the help of a Google expert.
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All the tools and resources you have at your disposal – both online and within the Google Web Creators community – to thrive on the web.
To apply, fill out our registration form. We encourage you to do so as soon as possible, because space is limited, and we’ll be reviewing applications on a rolling basis to ensure attendees will get the most out of the event. Expect to hear back from us after applying within about a week.
InvestoPro. La SIM innovativa di MarketWall, AnalytixInsight e Intesa Sanpaolo
MARKETWALL, ANALYTIXINSIGHT E INTESA SANPAOLO PRESENTANO INVESTOPRO SIM – InvestoPro Simè una società d’intermediazione mobiliare altamente innovativa caratterizzata dall’ampiezza degli strumenti e delle offerte d’investimento, dalla qualità del flusso informativo e dalla capacità di offrire soluzioni digitali avanzate.InvestoPro.com offre una piattaforma di trading online che comprende analisi finanziarie, notizie, ricerche, format educativi e altri contenuti esclusivi realizzati da team di esperti con l’ausilio dell’intelligenza artificiale. Già oggi InvestoPro.com può contare una community di oltre 2,5 milioni di…
L’articolo InvestoPro. La SIM innovativa di MarketWall, AnalytixInsight e Intesa Sanpaolo scritto da REDAZIONE TRENDIEST proviene da Assodigitale.
WhatsApp si fa rosa? No, è l’ennesima truffa
WhatsApp è l’app di messaggistica istantanea più utilizzata al mondo, motivo per cui è anche un mezzo efficace per diffondere truffe. L’ultima di questo filone è rappresentata da una versione di WhatsApp rosa, naturalmente fake. Come accade spesso, l’utente si troverà davanti a un link che espone i suoi dati a terzi, e il rischio è quello di vedersi rubate informazioni personali.
Google News Showcase is launching in Czechia
Google News Showcase, our new product and licensing program backed by our recent $1 billion global investment in news, will begin rolling out with Czech publishers starting today.
Czechia is the first Central and Eastern European country to launch News Showcase, and this new online experience will pay particular attention to the needs of readers who are looking for news that matters to them and their community. The publishers who are taking part at this stage include Echo Media, Economia, Forum 24, Internet Info and N media and their publications Aktuálně, Deník N, Echo24, Euro, Finance, FORUM 24, iHNed, Lupa, Měšec, Podnikatel and Respekt. These agreements take into account the rights outlined in Article 15 of the European Copyright Directive for specific online uses of press publications, which do not apply to hyperlinks and very short excerpts.
More than 600 news publications globally have now signed deals for News Showcase in more than a dozen countries, including Australia, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the U.K. and Argentina,with discussions underway in a number of other countries. More than 90% of the publications signed up around the world represent local, regional or community news.
“Economia has always been a pioneer in promoting paid digital content,” says Zuzana Řezníčková, the chairman of the board of directors of Economia, one of the leading economic news outlets in the Czech Republic. “The News Showcase product provides a good opportunity for this and Economia is happy to be among the first ones to check how it’ll work in the Czech market. The principles behind Google News Showcase present for us the right and fair way to distribute digital content.”
With News Showcase panels, news organizations can curate their content in a number of different ways to help readers get more context about a story and direct them to the full articles on the publishers’ websites. This drives valuable traffic to those websites, enabling them to grow their audiences and deepen their relationships with readers.
“We believe that Google News Showcase will allow us to present the quality news content of Deník N to a large audience in an innovative and attractive way,” says Ján Simkanič, publisher of Deník N, the Czech independent daily newspaper. “And we hope that many visitors will become our subscribers, for whom trusted content is an important value.”
Twitter, stop ai pregiudizi con il Responsible Machine Learning
Il fondatore di Twitter, Jack Dorsey, ha annunciato l’avvio del progetto “Responsible Machine Learning”, ovverosia un programma che mira ad analizzare in che modo gli algoritmi in uso dal suo social facilitino, anche involontariamente, delle forme di pregiudizi online, per potervi poi porre rimedio istruendo adeguatamente l’IA. L’obiettivo è quello di capire innanzitutto “come e perché” il procedimento sistematico di calcolo di Twitter sembri preferire mostrare le foto di individui di carnagione bianca nelle bacheche degli utenti, e il modo in cui il feed si presenta alle persone a seconda della loro etnia e alle raccomandazioni sui contenuti di tipo politico.